Cajun English
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Cajun English
Cajun English, or Cajun Vernacular English, is the dialect of English spoken by Cajuns living in Southern Louisiana. Cajun English is significantly influenced by Louisiana French, the historical language of the Cajun people, a subset of Louisiana Creoles—although many today prefer not to identify as such—who descend largely from the Acadian people expelled from the Maritime provinces during '' Le Grand Dérangement'' (among many others). It is derived from Louisiana French and is on the list of dialects of the English language for North America. Louisiana French differs, sometimes markedly, from Metropolitan French in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary, partially due to unique features in the original settlers' dialects and partially because of the long isolation of Louisiana Creoles (including Cajuns) from the greater francophone world. English is now spoken by the vast majority of the Cajun population, but French influence remains strong in terms of inflection and vocabu ...
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Acadiana Louisiana Region Map
Acadiana ( French and Louisiana French: ''L'Acadiane''), also known as the Cajun Country (Louisiana French: ''Le Pays Cadjin'', es, País Cajún), is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that has historically contained much of the state's Francophone population. Many inhabitants of the Cajun Country have Acadian ancestry and identify as Cajuns or Creoles. Of the 64 parishes that make up the U.S. state of Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment make up this intrastate region. Etymology The word "Acadiana" reputedly has two origins. Its first recorded appearance dates to the mid-1950s, when a Crowley, Louisiana, newspaper, the ''Crowley Daily Signal'', coined the term in reference to Acadia Parish, Louisiana. However, KATC television in Lafayette independently coined "Acadiana" in the early 1960s, giving it a new, broader meaning, and popularized it throughout southern Louisiana. Founded in 1962, KATC was owned by ...
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Phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west of England, the sound patterns (''sin'') and (''sing'') are two separate words that are distinguished by the substitution of one phoneme, , for another phoneme, . Two words like this that differ in meaning through the contrast of a single phoneme form a ''minimal pair''. If, in another language, any two sequences differing only by pronunciation of the final sounds or are perceived as being the same in meaning, then these two sounds are interpreted as phonetic variants of a single phoneme in that language. Phonemes that are established by the use of minimal pairs, such as ''tap'' vs ''tab'' or ''pat'' vs ''bat'', are written between slashes: , . To show pronunciation, linguists use square brackets: (indicating an aspirated ''p'' in ''p ...
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The Animated Series
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ...
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True Blood
''True Blood'' is an American fantasy horror drama television series produced and created by Alan Ball. It is based on ''The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', a series of novels by Charlaine Harris. A reboot is currently in development. The series revolves around Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a telepathic waitress living in the fictional rural town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. It is set two years after the invention of a synthetic blood product branded "Tru Blood" that has allowed vampires to "come out of the coffin" and let their presence be known to mankind. It chronicles the vampires' struggle for equal rights and assimilation while anti-vampire organizations begin to gain power. Sookie's world is turned upside down when she falls in love with 174-year-old vampire Bill Compton ( Stephen Moyer), and for the first time, she must navigate the trials and terrors of intimacy and relationships. The show was broadcast on the premium cable network HBO, in the United States, and was pr ...
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Treme (TV Series)
''Treme'' ( ) is an American drama television series created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer that aired on HBO. The series premiered on April 11, 2010, and concluded on December 29, 2013, comprising four seasons and 36 episodes. The series features an ensemble cast, including Khandi Alexander, Rob Brown, Chris Coy, Kim Dickens, India Ennenga, John Goodman, Michiel Huisman, Melissa Leo, Lucia Micarelli, David Morse, Clarke Peters, Wendell Pierce, Jon Seda, and Steve Zahn, and features musical performances by several New Orleans-based artists. The series takes its name from Tremé, a neighborhood of New Orleans. It begins three months after Hurricane Katrina as the residents, including musicians, chefs, Mardi Gras Indians, and other New Orleanians, try to rebuild their lives, their homes, and their unique culture in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricane and the subsequent severe flooding of the city. It received generally favorable reception, particularly for its performances by ...
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Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke French (20.8%) or other languages (21.1%). In Quebec, 7.5% of the population are anglophone, as most of Quebec's residents are native speakers of Quebec French. Phonologically, Canadian and American English are classified together as North American English, emphasizing the fact that most cannot distinguish the typical accents of the two countries by sound alone. While Canadian English tends to be closer to American English in most regards,Labov, p. 222. it does possess elements from British English and some uniquely Canadian characteristics.Dollinger, Stefan (2008). "New-Dialect Formation in Canada". Amsterdam: Benjamins, . p. 25. The precise influence of American English, British English and other sources on Canadian English varieties has been t ...
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Calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language while translating its components, so as to create a new lexeme in the target language. For instance, the English word "skyscraper" was calqued in dozens of other languages. Another notable example is the Latin weekday names, which came to be associated by ancient Germanic speakers with their own gods following a practice known as ''interpretatio germanica'': the Latin "Day of Mercury", ''Mercurii dies'' (later "mercredi" in modern French), was borrowed into Late Proto-Germanic as the "Day of Wōđanaz" (*''Wodanesdag''), which became ''Wōdnesdæg'' in Old English, then "Wednesday" in Modern English. The term ''calque'' itself is a loanword from the French noun ("tracing, imitation, close copy"), while the word ''loanword'' is a calque ...
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Louisiana Creole French
Louisiana Creole ( lou, Kréyòl Lalwizyàn, links=no) is a French-based creole language spoken by fewer than 10,000 people, mostly in the state of Louisiana. It is spoken today by people who may racially identify as White, Black, mixed, and Native American, as well as Cajun and Creole. It should not be confused with its sister language, Louisiana French, a dialect of the French language. Many Louisiana Creoles do not speak the Louisiana Creole language and may instead use French or English as their everyday languages. Due to the rapidly shrinking number of speakers, Louisiana Creole is considered an endangered language. Origins and historical development Louisiana was colonized by the French beginning in 1699, as well as Canadians who were forced out of Acadia around the mid-18th century. Colonists were large-scale planters, small-scale homesteaders, and cattle ranchers who had little success in enslaving the indigenous peoples who inhabited the area; the French needed la ...
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H-dropping
''H''-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "''H''-sound", . The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical development or as a contemporary difference between dialects. Although common in most regions of England and in some other English-speaking countries, and linguistically speaking a neutral evolution in languages, H-dropping is often stigmatized as a sign of careless or uneducated speech. The reverse phenomenon, ''H''-insertion or ''H''-adding, is found in certain situations, sometimes as an allophone or hypercorrection by H-dropping speakers, and sometimes as a spelling pronunciation or out of perceived etymological correctness. A particular example of this is the spread of 'haitch' for 'aitch'. In English Historical /h/-loss In Old English phonology, the sounds , , and (described respectively as glottal, velar and palatal voiceless fricatives) ...
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Homophones
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, as in ''rain'', ''reign'', and ''rein''. The term ''homophone'' may also apply to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as another phrase, letter, or group of letters. Any unit with this property is said to be ''homophonous'' (). Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms, e.g. the word ''read'', as in "He is well ''read''" (he is very learned) vs. the sentence "I ''read'' that book" (I have finished reading that book). Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs, e.g. ''to'', ''too'', and ''two''. Etymology "Homophone" derives from Greek ''homo-'' (ὁμο ...
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Nasal Vowels
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced without nasalization. Nasalized vowels are vowels under the influence of neighbouring sounds. For instance, the [] of the word ''hand'' is affected by the following nasal consonant. In most languages, vowels adjacent to nasal consonants are produced partially or fully with a lowered velum in a natural process of assimilation and are therefore technically nasal, but few speakers would notice. That is the case in English: vowels preceding nasal consonants are nasalized, but there is no phonemic distinction between nasal and oral vowels, and all vowels are considered phonemically oral. The nasality of nasal vowels, however, is a distinctive feature of certain languages. In other words, a language may contrast oral vowels and nasalized vowels p ...
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Consonant Cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education field it is variously called a consonant cluster or a consonant blend. Some linguists argue that the term can be properly applied only to those consonant clusters that occur within one syllable. Others claim that the concept is more useful when it includes consonant sequences across syllable boundaries. According to the former definition, the longest consonant clusters in the word ''extra'' would be and , whereas the latter allows , which is phonetically in some accents. Phonotactics Each language has an associated set of phonotactic constraints. Languages' phonotactics differ as to what consonant clusters they permit. Many languages are more restrictive than English in terms of consonant clusters, and some forbid consonant clusters ...
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